And the hits just keep on coming. The news, first noted yesterday that Saudi Arabia would send troops into Bahrain, has just been confirmed with a Saudi Official reporting that more than 1,000 Saudi troops have entered the tiny island home to the US Fifth fleet. Just headlines for now and we will bring you more as we see it. But far more troubling is the rumor that oil exporting countries have now started dumping Treasurys, leading to a soft patch in the govvie space earlier. We have not yet confirmed the rumor, which may have confused the seller of bonds (Japanese insurance companies come to mind).

Maybe to China via UK? If so, China will use the added US debt to continue to tie gold to the dollar. Still think 'the Chinese are financially unsophisticated'... lol... China is putting Ben on a gold standard as he kicks and screams...

'China buys PIMCO'S Treasuries and a Great Deal More'

"The markets are agog at PIMCO’s Bill Gross selling all his Treasuries and going 23% into cash.

What they should be looking at is the recent surprise revelation that China’s readjusted US Treasury holdings; they have jumped from 32% of China;’s monetary reserves to 42% of its reserves– an increase in holdings of $262 billion. A major portion of this $262 billion was purchased for China in the UK, apparently by the Bank of England, in order to hide China’s hand.

China is buying Treasuries- not selling them. It now owns about $1.160 trillion of US Treasuries. This is a major development– totally under-reported in the financial press except by the Financial Times, where I got my start in the 1960s while a Goldman Sachs risk arbitrageur."

"Smitty points out that China– the Peoples Bank of China– most likely will replace the US Federal Reserve as the BUYER of last resort of new treasuries once QE2 is over on June 30. So, the doomsday story that China will sink the dollar and the US economy by dumping its US government securities is just so much hogwash."

Did anyone else read this and bust out laughing? Is this Lenzner guy for real?

China has been buying US debt issues through the UK for a very long time.

If you are unaware of this then you have not been paying attention.

From Brad Setzer who is a member of the CFR...

"

Three. The apparent fall in China’s holdings of Treasuries is sure to attract a lot of attention. China’s bill holdings fell by $14.79 billion, while its long-term Treasury purchases were only $10.33 billion. That seems to imply a $4 billion plus fall in China’s Treasury holdings. Looking at the ensemble of China’s US portfolio doesn’t change the picture. Total short-term holdings fell by $22.2 billion, more than offsetting China $7.6 billion in purchases of all US long-term assets (China sold Agencies and corp bonds).

I don’t buy it. This is a case where it helps to know the pattern of past revisions — especially the pattern of past revisions when oil prices have been low. In such periods, China tends to account for a very large share of purchases through the UK. In other words, some of the $22.4 billion of Treasury bonds initially sold to UK banks were then sold to China’s central bank. From mid-2006 to mid-2007, about 2/3s of the UK’s purchases of Treasuries were ultimately reassigned to China. I would expect the something similar is happening now — all of China’s bill holdings tend to appear in the US data in real time, but only a fraction of China’s long-term purchases tend to show up directly in the US data."

Forbes: Another thing. You have an interesting theory, talking about throwing grenades out, about China and gold. Please explain.

Lehmann: Yeah. I had thought for many years that our relationship with China was they sent us goods and we sent them paper. That was the ideal situation for us. I mean, how can you lose? I mean, you keep sending them promissory notes and then you let the dollar erode and the value of what they’re holding is deteriorating.

But it’s gotten to such a level now that I’m concerned that basically China is probably already on a program to diversify the dollar into gold. I don’t think they want any other fiat currencies or want to minimize that amount. But if they can establish a large gold reserve for themselves, they would be in a position of some day in the future, effectively saying, “We’ve decided to come to buy our last resort for gold. And today’s price that we’re willing to pay for it is $1,500 an ounce.”

Dollars, not Renminbi. Which means they’ve, in one stroke, basically taken control of the gold market and tied the dollar to gold so that effectively, if every six months the dollar deteriorates 5%, they can just upgrade the stated price at which they wanted to buy gold at and thereby, upgrade and up-value their gold reserves but also keep the dollar in check."

I still don't see how this logic trail ends up in the conclusion that China's ability to sink the dollar is 'hogwash'. If they're simply converting added US debt into gold, is this not the same thing as 'dumping US treasuries' by stealth? Once they're satisfied with their PM reserves and their massive natural resource connections around the world....what's to stop them from sinking the dollar, should they choose to do so? Americans won't be able to buy chinese plastic widgets forever once inflation begins to metastasize (more dwindling buying power will be diverted towards food & energy, etc).

Not saying the referenced articles are wrong, but I would suggest a word of caution regarding Lenztner (strong ties to George Soros), and Setser (CFR). These gentlemen serve globalist interests, so their published works must be evaluated with that understanding.

Nevertheless, I am curious about the Chinese agenda in regards to the dying greenback. I only wish I knew with 100% certainty just what the hell was really going on.

"A major portion of this $262 billion was purchased for China in the UK, apparently by the Bank of England, in order to hide China’s hand."

I wrote to the BoE back in October last year when the UK's holding of US treasuries skyrocketed to $448bn. They claimed in their response that "the UK government held $19bn of dollar denominated assets.I can provide a scanned copy of the letter if someone with more rights then me can post it.

I'm happy to sumbit an FOI request if a) anyone thinks the above rumour is true and 2) whether we would collectively gain anything useful from the answer.

Thing is the Bahraini regime cleared Pearl Square and at no small cost several weeks ago. Then the Rodhamster leaned on them to be nice and let the demonstrators back in. Now the Bahrainis can't clear Pearl Square without Saudi help and the situation is ratcheted up. Utterly idiotic.

The problem with Gadaffi's survival, from the perspective of the West, is that he might just stop selling oil to countries he deems to have acted with the enemy. Since the UK and US were both condemning Gadaffi, they have a lot to lose by him staying.

I wonder what a Libyan nationalization of oil infrastructure/resources might do to Shell's stock price.

Franco and Napoleon were just off shore of their home countries before returning to overthrow their own governments. Watch for the name of the general leading the Bahrain campaign. Belarus must be making a killing in arms sales lately (no pun intended).